A Pirate Can Care
by theheartofadetective
Summary: When Molly meets Sherlock, she learns that he's learning to be a pirate, but she doesn't understand why he thinks caring would distract him from his duties. She becomes his friend, and Sherlock learns a small lesson from her. Kidlock.


Molly peeked over the bushes at a butterfly resting on a branch. She watched it curiously as it stayed in its position but flutted its wings. She had never seen anything more beautiful. She loved things of nature; she even loved the dead thing. When she did see dead ones though, she was sad, and wished that she could have helped them.

When the butterfly separated itself from the branch and started flying in the other direction, Molly let out a little gasp, darting through the bushes to chase it. She was stopped, running into someone with a large thud. When she looked up, a boy was in front of her, stumbling as well as he dropped his stick.

"The other pirates invading my ship would've captured me!" he blamed her, a frown on his face.

Molly felt intimidated as she stared up at the tall boy. She had seen him on the playground before, but she was shy. She was only five, and very tiny. The boy was a year older than her but very tall for his age, he towered over her.

"I-I'm sorry," she said, her eyes a little wide, worried from his unhappy tone.

He sighed. "I'm going to be a pirate when I get older. I need to practice," he pointed out.

"Oh," she said, looking down as she turned in her feet.

He huffed, forgiving her. The sad look on her face made him feel uneasy. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

She looked back up at him; a smile was on her face, her fear dispersing. "A doctor! I want to help people."

Sherlock sniffed. "Pirates cannot care for other people; it distracts them from getting treasure and fighting off pirates on other ships."

"But-but," Molly started, "everyone needs other people to care about!" She did not like this idea.

As Sherlock went to rebuttle her argument, another boy came over to them. He was even taller than Sherlock, and older than the two of them; he was a very proud eight year old. He pulled the stick out of Sherlock's hand and held it behind his back.

"What's this brother?" Mycroft said, "pretending to be a pirate?"

"I'm not pretending!" Sherlock yelled.

"You know you can't really _be_ a pirate. There are none," he said proudly, feeling smart.

"That's not true!" Molly chimed in, sounding excited, but her voice was still small, quiet. She felt even smaller when both of the older boys looked at her when she spoke. "Mummy says that anyone can be whatever they want."

They still looked at her, neither of them saying anything. Mycroft looked annoyed and uninterested, but Sherlock didn't look so angry anymore. "I could even be a princess if I wanted to!" she spoke up again.

"And how are you going to magically become a princess?" Mycroft asked.

"I'll- well… I'll marry a prince!"

Mycroft rolled his eyes, throwing Sherlock's stick to the ground before walking away.

Sherlock picked up his stick and then looked to Molly, who was quiet now, looking shyer than ever with a blush in her cheeks. He held out his hand to her. "I'm Sherlock."

Molly stuck her hand out to shake his, happy at the notion that it felt like they were friends. "I'm Molly."

"I know," he said as if it was obvious.

* * *

The next few days, Molly followed him around on the playground. It irritated Sherlock at first, but he found it to his advantage when she offered to help him train to be a pirate.

Whenever he would hand her a stick and play fight with her, he would always have the upper hand (as he should because he had been training for almost a month now and was feeling that he would be perfect at it soon). He did not play rough with her though. She was much smaller than him, so when he would win in the sword fight, he would only tap her with the stick so that he didn't hurt her.

When Sherlock decided that they could take a small break from practicing, Molly stood by him as he stood on the sidewalk and poked at a worm with his stick.

Molly held her stick up looking at it as she spoke to Sherlock. "I asked my daddy if pirates could care for people, and he said that they could."

He froze for a second before continuing to poke at the worm with the stick. He was gentle with it, trying to get the worm to climb onto the stick. After Molly had yelled at him yesterday that it was not nice to hurt animals, he had stopped doing it. "That isn't true," Sherlock replied. "It is a distraction."

When Molly did not reply, he looked up to see her staring at her stick. A wide smile and bright eyes on her face as she watched a butterfly perched upon the top of it. He had never seen her look so interested.

"Look," she said, a little too loudly as she did not hold the stick still anymore, too excited for it. She still smiled as she watched the butterfly float away.

As Sherlock stared at Molly(who was still watching the butterfly flutter away), still wondering why she cared so much even though he told her he could not let himself care for people if he was going to be a pirate. His thoughts were interrupted when a few of the seven year old boys that teased him often came over to him, pushing him the ground before he had a chance to tell them to stop, they laughed as they saw him on the ground, and fled when they knew that teachers were nearby.

He sat up, embarrassed as he looked down at his knee; a small scrape had formed, but was not bleeding. It hurt him very much. Moisture began to sting his eyes, but he didn't let himself cry. He was a brave boy, and as much as Mummy had told him it was okay for boys to cry, Mycroft had told him that brave boys didn't.

But as he continued to stare at his knee, he felt someone approach him more closely. He closed his eyes, afraid the other boys came back to tease him more, but this was not the case.

Sherlock opened his eyes as he felt someone wrapping their arms around him. Molly was sitting on the ground with him, her legs tucked under her as she hugged him tightly.

He looked away from his knee and toward Molly, watching her try to comfort him. He found that he very much liked her hugs and the pain in his knee was forgotten.

When she pulled her arms back towards her, she lifted her head a bit, pressing a light kiss to his temple.

Molly opened her eyes to find Sherlock staring up at her and she smiled. "Do you feel better?"

"Yes," he answered, still wondering curiously why she was so kind to him. She was very good to him.

"Daddy always says that kisses right here," she said, putting a finger to her temple, "make you feel better." She held her hand out to help him off of his feet and he grabbed it, standing up.

"Thank you," he said courteously.

"You're welcome!" she smiled brightly as her eyes kept flickering somewhere farther over his shoulder. When he was quiet for a minute, still looking at her, and she spoke up again. "I'm going to go on the swings now," she said as she bounded away.

* * *

When Sherlock was playing the next day, he had his stick in hand as usual, proceeding with his training. He had not seen Molly yet so he was practising alone for now. He popped out of the bushes, using the stick as a sword as he swatted it around, pretending to fight off the bad men coming onto his ship.

He was interrupted though when he heard two familiar voices not too far away from him. He looked up to see Mycroft towering over Molly. She looked scared as she looked up at him, and Mycroft held a big, devious smile on his face. Mycroft had grown bored of his other friends and wanted to play with his brother. He certainly wouldn't play with a five year old girl though and wanted her to go away.

"Sherlock won't play with you anymore," he told her, in which Sherlock scrunched his nose as he looked to them. He could play with Molly if he wanted; Mycroft was not the boss of him.

"But- but why?" Molly asked sadly.

"He doesn't like playing with you. He doesn't like you at all," he informed her as he walked away. Molly sat down on her bottom on the ground as she started to cry. She was sad that she couldn't play with Sherlock; she liked playing with him more than anyone else. All of the other kids her age never let her play with them.

When Sherlock saw Molly sitting on the ground crying, he ran over to the sandbox, a bit of sand clenched tightly in his hand. He saw Mycroft over at a picnic table and walked over to him. He began yelling at his older brother. Mycroft was always trying to tell him what to do, and Sherlock wouldn't have that. Molly was nice to him, and Mycroft was very unfair to her.

When Sherlock won the battle with his brother he walked over to Molly, sitting down next to her. "I like playing with you," Sherlock corrected. Molly pulled her hands away that had been covering her face while she sobbed.

"You do?" she asked, her voice not sounding as sad as it had when Mycroft was mean to her.

He nodded.

"Why is Mycroft sad?" she said, looking in Mycroft's direction as she realised that's where Sherlock kept looking. Though when he heard her speak, he looked to her.

Sherlock watched her, unsure why she looked so concerned for Mycroft after he had made her so sad. He didn't like it when she was sad. "I threw sand on his fairy cake," Sherlock replied, trying to keep a stern look on his face.

"You did?" Molly asked. Her crying ceasing immediately as she ignored the streams down her face.

"Mummy always tells me it isn't nice to make girls cry," he replied confidently, trying to sound logical in his words. He leaned in close to her, kissing her temple.

Her eyes were bright now, remembering what she told him yesterday. "Thank you," she said softly.

He was smiling at her now. "I think I want to be a prince as well as a pirate."

Molly smiled happily, standing up as she grabbed Sherlock's hand to help him up. She still held his hand in hers as she tugged him along. "Let's go on the swings!" she said excitedly, and Sherlock let her pull him along.


End file.
